Fuuma's Christmas Carol
by CompliCait
Summary: Fuuma, struck by a sudden sense of nostalgia, visits his former home on Christmas Eve with some unexpected consequences.


Warnings: Spoilers for the end of _X TV _and the beginning of _A Christmas Carol_.  
Notes: This was originally written for a contest, but it didn't win anything. I've made very few changes to it in the year that has passed since then (mostly grammatical corrections). Liberties were taken with both stories. I tried to stay true to canon for_ X TV_, as well as lifting as much accurate description (some lines are word for word and contain all original grammar and punctuation) from _ACC _as possible with the length constraint, but I had to cut out all the three ghost stuff, unfortunately, so most is drawn directly from Stave One. Given all of that, please enjoy.  
Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to the works of CLAMP or Charles Dickens, and I never will. I'm using them without their permissions, for mostly my own amusement.

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**Fuuma's Christmas Carol**

Kotori Monou was dead to begin with, there is no doubt whatever about that. The witnesses to her death numbered in the good half dozen. And, while Fuuma himself was not present at the funeral, it indeed did occur. There is no doubt she was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate.

Fuuma, for his part, had other matters to attend to now. No, he could not be bothered with such trifles as the memorial of one dead human girl, and she was; dead, that is. No, not now that the End was so near; the Promised Day was just next week, after all. It was Christmas Eve today; Christmas Eve, 1999.

The Kamui of the Dragons of Earth sat in his great chair, in the basement of Tokyo City Hall, deep in thoughts of the coming end of days, as one of his Angels droned on about "Christmas this" or "Holiday Party that." He really had no interest in such things, and even less in listening.

"You'll want all day to-morrow, I suppose, Kigai?" the Kamui of the Dragons of Earth interrupted.

"If quite convenient, sir," Yuuto replied, beaming a smile at his leader. "I would assume you'd be spending the last holiday of the world's existence with _your_ family."

"My sister has been dead these seven months. She died seven months ago this very night." Fuuma could not be bothered, and waved the man off.

Yuuto made his bows and farewells and all but skipped out of the room on his way to whatever trivial things he had to attend. The Kamui of the Dragons of Earth continued to sit, staring intently into the hilt of the Shinken that he held loosely in one hand. Now it is a fact that there was nothing at all particular about the hilt of his Shinken, except that it featured a Star of David. It is also a fact that Fuuma had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in this place. Let it also be borne in mind that Fuuma had not bestowed one thought on Kotori since his last mention of his seven-months-dead sister that afternoon. And then let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Fuuma saw in the hilt, without it undergoing any intermediate process of change--not a Star of David, but Kotori's face.

Dislodging the human lapcat, Nataku, from his knee, Fuuma rose, suddenly struck with a need for some fresh air. Some of the last fresh air humans would be priviledged to breathe, he mused to himself, shaking off the cold shudder that threatened him.

It had become rather cold outside, as Fuuma walked. Piercing, searching, biting cold. After some time he found himself standing before the Torii of the Togakushi shrine. It was old enough now, and dreary enough, for nobody lived in it. Not since that terrible night when Kamui's aunt, Tokiko, made such a mess of the shrine's floor. Fuuma was quite sure that no one had been back since then to clean up that mess, and was now no doubt a congealed frozen mass. But he couldn't be bothered to investigate. What had brought him here tonight was not such curiosity, though he was beginning to wonder what had.

He made his way inside, up the stairs, through the halls and towards what was once a young man named Fuuma's room. He paused at the girl's, Kotori's, door to see that all was right. Bed, table, dresser. Nobody under the bed, nobody in the closet. The wallpaper, dirty as it was now, was adorned with quaint pictures of bears, hearts and smiling faces. If each image had been a blank at first, with power to shape some picture on its surface from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would have been a copy of Kotori's head on every one.

"Hmph," said Fuuma; and walked across to his room, pushed past the piles of filthy abandoned clothes, and sat down on the dust covered comforter of his neglected bed, not before closing the door behind him. He sat there for a good few minutes, reflecting upon the idea that it was not in him, as the Dragons of Earth's Kamui, to be sentimental.

Then there was a clanking noise, deep down below; as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the boards in the cellar. Fuuma then remembered having heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging chains. The cellar door flew open with a booming sound, and then he heard the noise, much louder, on the floors below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight toward his door. And without a pause, it came on through the heavy door, and passed into the room before his eyes.

The same face, the very same. Kotori, with her flowing golden hair, plain dress, and dainty feet in even daintier shoes. The chain she drew was clasped about her middle. It was long, and wound about her like a tail; and it was made (for Fuuma observed closely) of wash buckets, brooms, mops, dusters, clothespins, and heavy aprons wrought in steel. Her body was transparent; so that Fuuma, observing her, and looking through her dress, could see the cloth behind.

"How now!" said Fuuma, caustic and cold as ever. "What do you want with me?"

"Much!"--Kotori's voice, no doubt about it.

"Who are you?"

"Ask me who I _was_."

"Who _were_ you, then?" said Fuuma, raising his voice.

"In life I was your sister, Kotori Monou. You don't believe in me," observed the Ghost.

"I don't," said Fuuma.

At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook her chain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that Fuuma held on tight to his seat, to save himself from falling in a swoon.

"Mercy!" he said. "Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?"

Again the specter raised a cry, and shook her chain and wrung her shadowy hands.

"You are fettered," said Fuuma trembling. "Tell me why?"

"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost. "I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will and of my own free will I wore it." She looked around her mournfully. "This house, Fuuma. This house is such a mess. What will you do? What will you do after the Final Battle? What happens if you've misjudged things and the world does not come to an end? You won't have a clean bed to come back to, Fuuma. I'm not here anymore to do these things for you. You must listen to me, Fuuma. You must clean this house!"

(This, incidentally, is the point where the author cracked)

"Oh, well I see then," replied the Dragon of Earth. "You really did like cooking and cleaning, didn't you?"

"I've come here as a warning to you, Fuuma--"

"My name-- is Kamui. I am _Kamui_ of the Dragons of Earth, and you, Ghost of a dead girl, do not frighten me. In one week's time the Kamui of the Dragons of Heaven will lose to me in the Final Battle and the End will come and nothing can change that."

"Oh! captive, bound and double-ironed," cried the phantom, "not to know that ages of incessant labor, by immortal creatures, for this earth, must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed! Not to know that any spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!"

"Is this the part where you tell me I am going to be visited by three Ghosts who will show me images of my past, present and future, and scare me into doing what it is you want?" The Dragon of Earth was at this point trying to dispel the feelings beginning to come over him with his cold mocking humor.

"Uh... Uhm... No..." the apparition of Kotori fumbled a bit behind her, making some shooing motion to person or persons out in the hall. There was a shuffling of feet out there and then silence again.

"Oh, that's too bad. I had the most amusing mental image of a little Kamui limping about on a crutch."

"You know, I went through a whole lot of trouble to be here tonight, and I'll be damned if I let this stand!" All at once the ghostly image of Kotori Monou changed. Her eyes were suddenly very much aflame with a rage that would not be contested. She let out one more blood chilling cry, rattled her chains with such force, and glared-- yes, Kotori Monou, sweet Kotori, mild Kotori; glared daggers at the form who was once her brother.

Something within Fuuma reacted to that look. Something instinctual; something which sent a cold chill down his back. Something of brotherly fear, and he responded. And so he, the Kamui of the Dragons of Earth, "he who hunts those who would do the will of God," cleaned. All through the night and into the next morning. He cleaned the piles of filthy clothes out of his room, beat the dust out of his bedding and mopped it out of the halls. He left no bloodstain in the shrine unscoured. Not stopping until the glare on the apparition of his dead sister subsided and she faded back into the darkness. Finally, the cold chill in his body calmed and he trudged back to the den of the Dragons of Earth, to recover and to prepare himself for the Final Battle; trying desperately to forget that he had just given in to a whim of the ghost of a little girl he himself killed, seven long months ago.

A week later, he, Fuuma Monou, walked home from Tokyo Tower. Bloodstained and battered; reeking of death and of great pains of conscience he arrived back at the shrine. He dragged himself through the front door and up the stairs. He didn't stop until he reached his room; collapsing onto his bed with a thud. There was only one thought in his head, as he skirted the line into unconsciousness. One thought, and in that being the only one, in his gratefulness for it and not something less immediate and more meaningful, made the burden of his guilt that much greater for what it was. He didn't think of the sins committed by the Dragon of Earth who murdered his sister. He didn't think of all his lost loved ones, or the ruins of the city of Tokyo. No, only one thing weighed on his mind tonight:

_God bless you Kotori Monou. God bless you for making me clean my room last week. _

The End.

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Happy Holidays!  
12/24/06  
1820 words


End file.
